Houston, the Grammy Award-winning singer of the disco anthem “Don’t Leave Me This Way” who grew up in Long Beach, is a childhood friend of the city councilman. The two even sang together in a group called The Valiers.

“He was the only one in the group who couldn’t sing,” Houston said, laughing in an interview with the Press-Telegram in 2007.

The free event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at Long Beach Law, 782 Pacific Ave.

Chicano author Manuel Muñoz will be a guest speaker at Cal State Long Beach on Thursday. Photo : Helena María Viramontes.

LONG BEACH – Author Manuel Muñoz came out to his parents the best way he could – In front of a packed auditorium at Cal State Fresno during a reading of one of his fiction short stories.

Muñoz, 44, who was born and raised in a family of Fresno-area farm workers, returned to the area about 2008 to read from “The Faith Healer of Olive Street” to a group of students in a queer literature class.

Gay Latino characters were an essential part of Muñoz’s first collection of short stories, “Zigzagger,” and “The Faith Healer of Olive Street.”

A Bay Area attorney is challenging a Long Beach police vice unit decoy in a lewd conduct sting operation targeting a gay man – and he hopes the case, being heard Friday in Long Beach, will end the practice. Courtesy photo.

LONG BEACH – A Bay Area attorney is challenging a Long Beach police vice unit decoy in a lewd conduct sting operation targeting a gay man – and he hopes the case, being heard Friday in Long Beach, will end the practice.